California housing crisis podcast: Where’s the home building for the middle class?
A lot of the new housing that gets built in California — particularly in the Bay Area and Los Angeles — is only affordable for those making six-figures or more. And most of the housing built with direct public subsidies is reserved for low-income residents.
That leaves teachers, nurses, police officers and other middle-income residents squeezed when it comes to finding places to live. Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled a new plan in his budget that proposes $500 million in state money to help subsidize the development of moderate-income homes. He’s also asking tech companies in Silicon Valley to match that amount with their own low-interest loans to developers to build housing of the same kind.
On this episode of “Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Crisis Podcast,” we talk about the difficulty in building housing for middle-income residents and whether Newsom’s proposals will make an impact. Our guest is Tyrone Buckley, policy director for the affordable housing advocacy organization Housing California, and we discuss all the money for low-income housing in Newsom’s budget and how his plans differ from those of former Gov. Jerry Brown.
“Gimme Shelter,” a biweekly podcast that looks at why it’s so expensive to live in California and what the state can do about it, features Liam Dillon, who covers housing affordability issues for the Los Angeles Times’ Sacramento bureau, and Matt Levin, data and housing reporter for CALmatters.
You can subscribe to “Gimme Shelter” on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, Google Play and Overcast.
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